


Swallowtail

by RokettoMusashi



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Episode Fix-it, Episode Fix-it: SM131, Fix-It, Gen, Historical Metaphors, Historical References, japanese names/characterizations so if you're here from my other stuff sorry for the whiplash, musashi miyamoto/kojiro sasaki, the real otp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 11:35:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20209078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RokettoMusashi/pseuds/RokettoMusashi
Summary: 燕返し (tsubame-gaeshi) / "swallow's counter" -(noun)1. a sword technique defined by a feint, followed by a quick change in the opposite direction2. the favored trump card of historical swordsman sasaki kojirō





	Swallowtail

**Author's Note:**

> i'm not the biggest fan of the alola league, so i fixed the part of it i hated most and added the flair i wanted to see.
> 
> be the change you want to see in the world!

“Only _ one _of nya gets past round one?!”

Even as Nyarth says it, it doesn’t entirely register to the two of them as true. 

The windows of the donut truck are wide open, and the last leavings of the sunset around them filter in and drench the cramped space in a shade of lavender that turns foreboding as the sentiment lingers. Kojirō stares slack-jawed at the tablet in front of him for a moment, too nervous to bring his eyes to Musashi’s. His heart sinks, plunging him into a silence that lasts even as they’re shuttering the truck and trudging back to the hotel, even as they’re walking down the twilit streets still rife with festivities, even as they should be re-grouping, re-planning, re-thinking their strategy. Somehow, the lot of them end up not back at the Pokémon Center, but stuck to the railing of one of the edges of Manalo Stadium, overlooking the vast Alolan sea. 

The plan was simple enough—they both enter the league, they win the league, they use their newfound power in their pursuit of world conquest, for the glory of the Rocket Gang. How those things would factor together could be decided once they were _ league champions, _ and if they can’t find a plan for it, they’re sure Sakaki-sama can.

_ That’s what Musashi keeps saying, _ Kojirō ponders quietly to himself. _ But really... _

There’s a heat of despair hovering off Kojirō’s skin like a fever he can’t sweat, a foggy dissonance in his normally bright eyes that’s driving Musashi up a wall the longer it stays. It’s a wrench in their plans, but he doesn’t have to be so needlessly _ dramatic, _ she thinks with a huff. 

Behind the two humans, Nyarth and Sonansu share apprehensive looks, a little unsure if they should say anything to parse the silence. It’s rough, they ruminate collectively, to see two people who shine best together on opposing sides of the battlefield. Nyarth tries to picture it in his mind’s eye, but the colours never truly crystallize, too impossible of a world.

On the man’s sixteenth sigh, Musashi snaps to face him, the stillness of the night utterly shattered in the shrill of her voice.

“Hey, hey, what’s _ wrong _ with you?” she angles herself, hovering an inch out of his space. “Your moping’s really starting to annoy me!”

Kojirō drags his gaze sluggishly toward her, looking like a gardie that’s fallen into the ocean. The question makes no sense to his buzzing mind, of course she must know the answer, in all her brilliance? He wonders for a moment if it’s a test before he sees what appears to be genuine concern in her fiery blues.

“Surely, you can’t really be asking that?” he says, and the stifled expression of anger she forms in response is answer enough. “We both know you’re going to win, Musashi.”

“What’s with that attitude?!” Musashi says. “I’d be _ glad _ to beat you, but the match-ups were _ just _ announced!”

Kojirō sighs again, dropping his gaze back to the waves crashing at a gentle rhythm against the man-made structure.

“You’ll undo Hidoide and I on the first turn, if you don’t force us to forfeit before the match even starts,” he defects, then mumbles. “...and my dreams of battling Royal Mask will crumble before my eyes.”

His teammate blinks a little incredulously at him, and were he to face her, he’d see the gears turning in her mind in an attempt to reach him where he is. Kojirō’s bouts of depression are so rarely something Musashi’s able to truly parse, self-fulfilling prophecies he writes that she’s annoyed by long before she’s compassionate towards. 

“Pull yourself _ together!_” she shouts, white knuckle on the railing and fangs in her mouth. “You really think I’d do something so low? You’re the worst!”

Kojirō seems genuinely taken aback by how much offense she takes at the sentiment. He means it as a compliment—a testament to Musashi’s own strength and wit, but on her ears it’s like utter venom. There’s a buried sort of hurt he can pinpoint in her eyes, the kind he sees whenever she feels unseen and misunderstood.

“Musashi…” he starts, but she keeps on.

“How long have we been friends, Kojirō?!” she asks. “Use that alleged brain of yours and _ count _ for me!”

Unsure where she’s going, he bites. “Ten years?”

“Ten years!” she mirrors, a hand on her hip as she faces him. “Tell me, do you even know me at all?!”

“But, Musashi,” Kojirō says. “We’ve never had a battle, before. Not a real one, not one with stakes.”

Nyarth speaks up, climbing atop Sonansu’s head for height. “He’s right, nya’know. This ain’t one of your usual squabbles.”

“Soooo~nansu,” comes a hushed agreement from beneath his paws.

“Exactly!” Musashi says. “Why do you think I'm pissed at you? You have no basis to assume the worst of me!”

“I’ve seen you battle others!” Kojirō bites.

“_Brats_, Kojirō, you’ve seen me battle _ brats! _” she takes a domineering step forward. “You’re not just some bug to crush beneath my heel on the way to the top, you know!”

“I…” he looks up with a sudden softness, eyes glinting. “I’m not?”

“Of all the—” she huffs, stopping herself from plunging him further down. “No! You’re my equal! We’re _ partners, _ or did you forget?!”

“M… Musashi… what about your dreams of fame and fortune?” he asks. “Don’t you want to win?”

“Of _ course _ I want to win, but don’t you _ dare _ disrespect me with an easy battle,” Musashi shoves a pointed finger at his chest, prodding aggressively. “Beating you down like a bullied child isn’t fun for either of us! We’re the Rocket Gang, we _ have _ to give Alola a show!”

“A show, huh…” Kojirō ponders, not entirely convinced.

Musashi looses her stance a little, closing her eyes in the resolved way she so often does. She moves her manicure from his heart, whispering a quiet exhale.

“Come on, now,” she says, her tone turning softer as she brings her palm to his cheek. “You’re the only person in the universe worthy enough to stand on the field with the likes of me. Where’s that fiery spirit of yours?”

There’s a genuine beat of him shyly peering up from beside her touch, his throat tight and his heart wavering with love. He tries to keep tears out of his voice, but it’s never something he’s excelled at, born crying and crying still. They well up in his eyes, spilling over all at once.

“You’re right!” he chokes out, balling his fists and staring onwards toward her. “Oh, Musashi! I’m sorry! I’ll make you proud!”

She removes her hand from his face, crossing her arms and nodding with satisfaction. “That’s much more like it.”

“We might not have the foolproof odds we had before,” Nyarth notes. “But that doesn’t this race is over!”

“Nyarth is right,” Musashi nods again. “Kojirō, I plan on beating you, but when I do it’ll still be you and I standing on top. You have my word!”

“So~nansu!”

“I’ll see you there, Musashi,” Kojirō says, smiling a bittersweet smile and wiping the leavings of tears on his cheeks away, child-like. 

Beside them, the two don’t notice as Nyarth and Sonansu heave a synchronized sigh of relief, breathing off the tension they’ve been holding all night. This vibe rings much nicer—the two of them so fired up. Few people exist beyond Musashi’s tyrannical rule by way of her own mercy, it’s a realm Kojirō so rarely sees himself. He’s blessed, to be there now, face to face with her instead of always lagging behind.

As they’re staring out toward the stars blinking on over the sea, he realizes that doubts still linger in his mind as to whether or not he can beat her, flame that she is—but for a fleeting moment, the end result disappears, and he’s lost in the euphoria of them toe-to-toe, heart to heart.

_ It’s enough, _ he finds himself unable to keep the thought away. _ If I must lose to anyone, I’d prefer it be her. _

* * *

Kojirō’s chewing the inside of his cheek with a ferocity previously unheard of, an attempt to keep the anxious fidget away off his hands and away from the prying eyes of the entire Alolan population. The stadium has fallen into a curious hush, new and foreboding and not at all doing anything for his frayed nerves. Staring at the empty battlefield as it rests in front of him, he tries not to fall into the abyss of the calculations and what ifs as they spiral in his head.

_ She gave me that whole speech, and now she’s not here? What if something terrible happened to her? _ He worries, eyes on the vacant space where Musashi should be. _ She was fine this morning, but she never is the best at telling us when she’s not feeling well… what if she’s sick? Or hurt? What if she overdid it and collapsed on the way out? _

Down the hall, around the corner, Musashi can hear the stadium murmuring with apprehension, neither its patrons nor its administrators entirely sure how to proceed. She fiddles with the z-ring as it hangs there on her wrist, a schemer’s smile stuck on her face as she traces the outline of a crystal she won’t be using.

“Ssso,” her partner whispers, palms framing his face. “Nan?”

“Shh,” she tells him. “Trust me, Sonansu.”

The patient pokémon gives a nervous look back up the steps and to the sunlight that leaks into the darkness of the hall. _ I do, _ he wants to say, but something about the situation feels dramatic, even for Musashi.

Kuchinashi is whispering with another league official, and he apathetically signals the upper levels with a language Kojirō barely registers, let alone deciphers. Even as the announcer is calling it, the words don’t make it to him entirely.

“It seems like contestant Musasina is a no-show,” the stadium’s PA booms. “In that case, we have no choice but to award the victory to…”

_ What if she got held up backstage? _ Kojirō frets, heart hammering in his ears. _ What if the cops found out she was using an alias and shipped her back to Kanto, what if I’m next? What if they’re on their way right now to handcuff me on live TV? What if— _

“Doi-_ de! _” Hidoide prods at his leg with a tentacle, pointing with another. Kojirō snaps back into his body seemingly all at once, and his heart finally settles as he throws his gaze across the divide. 

“Sorry to keep you waiting, everyone!” Musashi beams as she steps out of the hallway’s blackness like a star fallen to the earth, blowing kisses and holding victory signs up to the crowds as they cheer at an absolutely deafening volume. The sight of her confident strut forward on wedges like morphine, Kojirō’s whole body nearly deflates.

He wants to absolutely bolt toward her, to interrogate her like a mother fussing over its young, taking her vitals and feeding her snacks and examining every inch of her for cuts and bruises and broken bones. He wants, more than anything, to channel all the anxiety and its burrowing itch beneath his heart to care, to doting, to love. It’s only when she finally meets his eyes across the battlefield with a devious grin that the worry turns to muted betrayal.

“Don’t look so down, Kojirō,” Musashi says. “The battle’s not even begun!”

_ Of course she’s fine, _ he steels himself. _ She showed up exactly when she wanted to. _

“Well, then!” The announcer corrects himself. “I suppose we can proceed after all! Thank you all for your outstanding patience!”

Kojirō wants to shout across the divide, _ what kind of game are you playing? What happened to all that talk of equal ground? _ But he knows she’d have an answer on her silver arbok’s tongue about how to captivate a crowd you have to make them wait for a payoff. Still, he lives involuntarily vicariously through her risky way of being, having the heart attacks that she should be having for her. It’s only as she’s taking rose-gold sunglasses from her top and putting them on with a typical flourish that he sees it glinting in the sunlight—the purple finish of their shared z-ring, a darkened crystal resting at its center. His stomach drops back to where it was, and he pitches forward to call to her.

“Musashi, what gives?!” Kojirō says. “Sonansu can’t use that!”

Sonansu had been thinking the same thing, and he’s grateful to Kojirō for mentioning it. He turns to his trainer, eager to hear her genius explanation, but she only sharpens her grin and calls right back to their teammate.

“And?” Musashi says. “Use or not, it’s a wonderful accessory befitting of a league champion like me!”

“Hidoide and I need it more!”

“Well, then, maybe you lot shouldn’t have so carelessly left it out on the hotel bed where I could find it,” she lowers her specs, eyes searing blue. “Tossing out your ace in the hole? You’ve already _ lost! _”

She punctuates it by sticking out her tongue, and its playful sort of nonchalance makes Kojirō’s blood boil. His nails are on the verge of digging far into his palm, tighter with every word and innocent giggle Musashi throws in his direction. She watches him squirm, her performer’s heart soaring—_this _ is the Kojirō Alola deserves. Flames crackling up his back like a kaenjishi’s mane, his anger turned alchemy-like into determination and grit. What kind of partner would she be if she couldn't inspire him to reach himself?

_ And if he loses his nerve and goes crashing down, well, a win’s a win, _ she thinks.

“The sixth match is between the elegant actress—who soars like a butterfree and stings like a spear—Musasina, and…”

On the other side of the field, she snaps right back into the spotlight, waving and smiling and singing out thank yous to the adoring public. Hidoide postures with lightning-fast punches at Kojirō’s feet, fired up and chattering excitedly.

“Oh… wait… um…” the announcer stops, mid-sentence. “We… haven’t received a profile on contestant Dekojirō.”

Kojirō stumbles backward, his heart sinking. “What?!”

Musashi falters with him, the sudden realization throwing off her game.

“...I forgot to send it,” she nervously sputters out, inching back on her heel. 

Across the divide, Musashi isn’t sure what she’s _ expecting _ to see, exactly, but she knows what she can see now—Kojirō with his eyes on the floor, shoulders hunched up like an arbo ready to strike. Hidoide is peering up apprehensively at her trainer, and when he finally snaps his eyes to meet his opponent across the divide, Musashi can see the wrath as it trembles through his lithe frame.

“_Musashi! _” he scolds.

“Accident! It was an accident!” she tries, but given how dirty she’s played already, she knows it’s a likely story.

Sensing the tides turning, Kuchinashi figures now is as good a time as any to call it.

“Uh…” he starts, strongly. “We will now commence the sixth match of round one. Begin!”

The words barely leave his mouth before Kojirō heaves forward in an unthinking rage, spitting his first attack like venom across the divide. 

“Hidoide! Spike Cannon!”

Hidoide charges forward in sync, sensing her trainer’s emotions as they build to a fever pitch. Her name’s like a gatling fire on her tongue as she unleashes the barrage, and for a moment Musashi almost struggles to respond to it. Her words come out sudden, barely thrown together.

“Sonansu, do something!”

Sonansu’s much faster, alight like the sunset that’s starting to form around the stadium’s protective walls. The spikes shoot right off his skin and back toward Hidoide, and she spins out of their way with a lucky _ swish _ of her tentacles, landing back where she started. Around them, the dust kicked up settles slowly, and Hidoide burns oceanic blues into Sonansu’s unyielding expression.

“Good, good!” Musashi cheers, stroking her partner pokémon’s head like a doting mother. “More of that, please!”

“Sonan~suuu!” he beams right back, and Kojirō grits his teeth harder, feet dug into the dirt below.

“Sludge Bomb!”

Hidoide keeps herself at a distance, not at all a stranger to the absolute livewire Sonansu can be in battle. She can feel her trainer’s own feelings swirling like a hurricane inside of her, his tendencies toward extreme empathy having rubbed off on her in their time together. His mind’s not where it should be, too drowned in passion to properly strategize—and so she tries for him, ever the passionate thing, herself.

Toxic heat sears in her belly and she launches it forward, aloft in midair from the force of its power. Musashi’s quicker, this time, smiling through the brunt of it—she throws her arm forward, refusing to give.

“Do something! I don’t care what!”

Sonansu brandishes his own arms upward, puffing his chest up with a proud utterance of his name as he shines a shade of crystal blue that nearly blinds Hidoide in its brilliance. She can’t move quick enough, the force of such a powerful attack keeping her stuck where she is in the air, and Sonansu fires twice as hard, tossing her back with a cry.

Kojirō watches as the brutal star takes the hit, flipping around despite it in an attempt to land upright. His heart sinking at the pain in her voice already, Musashi’s confident smile across the divide feels like ocean water in his cuts. Sonansu salutes—blissfully, satisfied.

There’s not much Kojirō can do beyond hope to outlast them, he realizes. Hidoide peers back at him from behind the shade of her tentacles, a quiet expression of trust.

“Once more, Hidoide!”

“De~!” she jumps to it, launching another maelstrom of venom in Sonansu’s direction, and the cycle continues on, and on, and on.

“Hidoide launches a barrage of powerful attacks!” the stadium announcer booms. “But Sonansu counters them with its flawless defense! A marvelous, heated battle is unfolding right before our very eyes!”

The sun dips with Hidoide’s energy, with Kojirō’s. It was a good omen, they’d all agreed, to be the last league battle of the day. The sticky Alolan heat could touch them far less as its watchful sun sunk into the ocean, the orange it painted the universe a shade they saw in a thousand white tomorrows. Palm trees cutting near-black silhouettes into the skyline around the stadium, makenkani and nekkoara clinging to their trunks.

With the walls of the stadium obscuring all but the sky, the battle is all Kojirō can see. Musashi’s standing like a sentinel on the other end, her expression facing forward—erect, strong, not upward, not looking down on him, either. Perfectly centered, eyes on the entirety of the battle field. The wrinkle so usually present in her brow is gone, every inch of her relaxed in a way that unnerves him, reminds him that she fears _ nothing. _ Vigour swirls around her, her bare legs stuck to the ground and not moving from their position, shoulder-length apart. 

Kojirō can’t see the sun. Still, he knows her back is to it, blinding and brilliant, turning her body into an abysmal paper doll. Were it not for Manalo’s protective walls, one single step to the side would throw it like embers into Hidoide’s eyes.

There’s a slight crack in Sonansu’s veneer, though Musashi stands without one to match. Hidoide sucks in ragged breaths at Kojirō’s feet, the air feeling like fire as she tries to stay standing despite everything. He can feel the anxiety crawling back up his arms as he listens to her choke back a wheeze, a tiny sound that plunges him back into despair. There’s no way out, his strategist’s intellect failing him when he needs it more than ever.

_ I have to do something, _ he panics. _ I have to— _

Musashi sees him stumble. She presses forward.

“You giving up already, Kojirō?” she chides. “Come on, I’ve barely gotten started!”

The nonchalance in her tone sends him right back into his previous headspace, where nothing matters but how frustrated he is at the futility of everything. He hears Hidoide spit out a half-growl and knows she’s feeling it, too, the venom on her jagged fangs all the permission he needs to press forward.

“Enough, Musashi!” he says. “I’m _ ending _ it! Hidoide, Sludge Bomb!”

The poison-type sparks another round up, and she can tell by the ache in all ten of her arms that she’s running on embers, now. There’s an instinct in her head telling her that whatever reserves of poison she has inside are running low on fuel, and she focuses every ounce of her small body into the attack. It doesn’t need to be excessive, or flashy, or prolonged—it simply needs to be _ brutal, _ and Hidoide knows brutal like she knows her crown of thorns.

Pulling the venom up from the pit of her being, Hidoide holds back nothing, and Sonansu responds in kind alongside Musashi’s hearty shout. Toxic fumes singe the ground around them, steam rising up from the contact they make. Hidoide can’t see in the mist as her attack’s being flung back at her the way Sonansu lurches backward, only by an inch.

Without waiting for Kojirō to command her to, she attempts to dodge the strings of secondhand poison coming her way. She makes it barely, their blight barely grazing her as she tumbles back down to the floor, stumbling into a landing at her trainer’s feet.

“Hey, Kojirō, what was all that about ending it?” Musashi sticks her tongue out again. “Looks like the battle’s still going, if you ask—”

Sonansu falters, just short of toppling onto one knee. The gleam in his squinted eyes stays alive, but the purple flush across his expression betrays the fight still left. He winces once, tail falling limp to the floor. Musashi catches its pained gaze, two peering eyes in the darkness.

“That’s—” she blinks, dumbfounded. “That’s not great, is it?”

There’s a blistering pain atop Sonansu’s veins he’s trying desperately to push past, and he offers his partner a weak agreement. “Sonaan~su.”

“Hidoide catches a lucky break and manages to poison Sonansu!” the stadium erupts into cheers for the underdog. “But will it be enough?”

“Doi-_ de _ ,” Hidoide mutters in response, as if to say _ try me. _

She doesn’t even think to look back at Kojirō, who sounds like he’s on the verge of tears, utterly enamoured.

“You’re _ incredible _, Hidoide!” he says, his face glowing with pride, and she steals a dreamy glance at those gemlike eyes, wishing she had enough venom left in her system to turn them foggy and lidded. She shakes the thought away, shooing off the butterfree swarming in her stomach.

Musashi’s unmoving stance begins to dissolve, cracks snaking their way up its statuesque existence. Kojirō finds his inner resolve in the fear creeping into her face, and for the first time all day, the performative fire within him crackles and snaps genuine. 

_ Still, Hidoide’s close to her limit, _ he notes. He’s been avoiding battling at a close range until now, worried about the ferocity of a counterattack at that proximity. He runs calculations in his head, trying to gauge how much longer Sonansu can stay standing. Hidoide digs her tentacles into the dirt below, a gesture that pushes him forward, into the unknown.

“We’ve got this, Hidoide!” Kojirō assures her. “Knock Off!”

Musashi spits a curse through clenched teeth as he calls the attack, nearly forgets to respond accordingly as Hidoide charges forward with her crown white-hot and energized. 

“Go, Sonansu! This _ isn’t _ over!”

Despite the venom coursing though him, he manages to cast himself alight, shimmering in his protective shell with a determined shout. Hidoide slams into him hard, a merciless marine pinwheel driving thorns into his skin. Maybe it’s the darkness searing off the move, blanketing his usually patient and serene psyche, maybe it’s the poison trying with all it is to take him—Sonansu doesn’t have the wit to discern which, but the Counter’s hard to hold, just short of slipping from his grip.

Hidoide flies off of him, landing in a tangled heap on the other side of the battlefield. Sonansu lets out a heavy breath, cringing hard as another toxic blight pulses behind his eyes. Still, he stays upright.

Kojirō watches the patient pokémon persist, and the confidence creep back into Musashi’s smile. He can’t see her fiery blues, but he knows they’re narrowed and forward-facing, the villainess’s grin she wears like a badge bleeding into their passionate shine. Hidoide pushes her two front tentacles against the torn-up earth, weakly bringing her body back up with a telltale tremble in her frame. Kuchinashi zeroes in on her, a fact that brings Kojirō’s nerves right back to where they were, lucky break forgotten in their wake.

_ A super-effective hit on top of the poison, and the two of them are still standing, _ he swallows thickly. _ We’re… there’s no way Hidoide can take anymore… we’re doomed. _

He shuts his eyes tight, the numbers and scenarios running in his head all having the same outcome.

_ We can’t win! No matter how much damage we deal, we’ll always take twice as much! This is hopeless, there’s no way— _

Kojirō almost doesn’t register it, the rasped-out noise at his feet. Hidoide repeats herself, this time jabbing at his ankle with a lacking tenderness he’s grown to find semi-comforting in his time with her. 

“Do-ii,” she says, louder, and he drops to a squat to meet her eyes, curious as to what she wants to say.

“Yes?” he asks.

“Doide!” she responds in kind, the light off her fanged smile not at all fading despite the wobble in her stance, the shakiness in her breathing.

Kojirō tilts his head, trying to meet her optimism where it lies. They’re close enough that sentiments pass between them—words, sometimes, too—but she’s so far above him in the faith she has, he worries. From every angle, he feels too hopeless to hear her.

Chirping her name as she does it, he watches as she pitches forward with another quick succession of punches to the still air—same as she did before the battle had even started. So normally slow and bobbing along with her tentacles dragging in the sand, it’s a quirk of hers Kojirō’s always found rather cute—a way of boasting before battle that her pretty face hides a fierce competitor, that her thorns aren’t just there to shield her from the burning sun.

Hidoide finishes the gesture with a brightened grin, the light in her eyes putting the stars blinking above to shame. She says nothing more, does nothing more, just looks to her trainer and waits, glowing. He peers right back into her, replaying the motion in his head.

The brutal star moves like molasses in her day-to-day, the sprawling tubes on her underside pulling her millimeter by millimeter across the den. She touches every grain of sand as she moves from one end to the other, stopping to steal shy glances at the tsutsukera as they twitter in the treetops. Even as she ducks secretly into the dark of the night to meet with the brats’ pokémon beneath the clear Alolan sky, the urgency you’d expect is not there. Hidoide takes her time in all but two worlds—love, and battle.

It’s only then Kojirō realizes—she boasts not her power, but her _ speed _. Speed she keeps under lock and key, speed she only uses on the things that make her metaphorical heart race. Her tentacles move like a well-oiled machine. When two of them settle, two more kick up. She remains in constant motion. Rapid, nimble. Kojirō meets her eyes, the ocean as it laps against fallen palm leaves. He understands.

_ That’s quite the dirty trick, Kojirō, _ Musashi had told him with adoration in her voice, the first time he whispered it to her— _ always fight with the sun at your back. _

_ No, no, Musashi! _ He’d defended, an equally devious grin on his face. _ There’s timing in every battle, you see. _

He tries to remember where he learned it, but the memory is dreamlike, ephemeral.

They’re both wearing shades over their eyes, but as Kojirō rises back to his feet and stares across the sprawling divide to his partner, he can’t help but feel the familiar sensation of their stares on one another. He closes his own, takes in a deep breath. For a moment, he feels as though he’s somewhere else—the stench of seawater in his nose, waves lapping at the shore. It’s accented with the curious but unmistakable sound of shaven wood colliding with polished metal, and he can feel the vibrations of the sound reverberate from his heart, outward. Musashi’s there, too, though he can’t see it’s her—with the sunset searing his vision, she’s a black blur against the equally unforgiving tides.

With one final wooden coffin nail, Alola takes him back.

“You two done with your little clambake over there?” Musashi calls.

“Naan~su?” her pokémon echoes.

She wears her air of confidence, but it’s a reminder to Kojirō that he’s the one in control—that so long as he stands unmoving, she’s forced to, as well. He could write essays on the poetic irony of his single-minded and self-motivated partner—who never waits a moment and always takes what she wants as soon as she wants it—raising a pokémon that can never move first. He doesn’t have the time or the script, though, so instead he lets the information reinvigorate him. Hidoide watches him ball his fist, throwing her tentacles up in excitement, as if to say _ there you are. _

_ Raw power can’t win this fight, _ he meditates.

“Hidoide, Knock Off!”

Knowing the words are coming before they leave her trainer’s lips, she charges back into close quarters with Sonansu. Hidoide’s a tropic-coloured blur against the grimy earth, and Musashi almost sounds embarrassed for the opposing pair as she waves her hand nonchalantly and calls the command with a knowing sigh.

“Sonansu, you know the drill.”

He manages to muster one more Counter through the venom’s haze, the two of them working on borrowed time. Hidoide pushes her spikes into him, and he pushes back, refusing to be her Goliath. For a moment, time seems to slow down in the collision, and her sleepy eyes meet his shuttered ones. Sonansu can’t seem to parse what exactly it is that pulls her jagged teeth into a ceaseless grin.

“Now!” Kojirō shouts, and Musashi takes a step back, the vagueness of the command throwing her off her game.

“Doooo-iii—!” Hidoide cries with all she has left within her, flipping around so lightning-quick, everyone in the stadium is sure they need an instant replay to register what they’ve seen. 

Kojirō watches with hope bubbling up inside him like fireworks as she lands the maneuver—a hard hit to the patient pokémon’s temple from above, and before he can ready a second Counter, a successive hit from below. Sonansu loses his focus, no mind nor body to keep up.

The brutal star sandwiches him between breakneck blows, her tentacles lighting up in quick succession as she lands them viciously. Back and forth, back and forth, like the waves as they lap and crash against the shore. Like the tail of an ohsubame, cutting the clouds with a sharpened _ swish _ as it instantly changes direction, a sword all its own.

“I’ve never seen anything like this!” The announcer cheers. “Hidoide’s making use of all ten of its arms! Even Sonansu can’t counter all those successive hits at once!”

Musashi watches with a crawling fear as her pokémon seems to blink his defenses in and out like a broken traffic light, trying desperately despite the maelstrom to keep himself steady. Her heart leaps up as he manages to hold one—just short of growling his name into a single determined Counter, its scarlet glow remaining. It launches Hidoide back into the air like a springboard, and she flops like a beached koiking as she’s trying with all she is to gain her footing. Only barely, she manages, pain spiking up her body at the force of the landing.

Sonansu’s fiery coat fades quietly, a visual representation of him letting go of the tension in his frame. The air’s thick and oppressive, and he can tell Hidoide feels it too with the way her body rises and falls, desperately trying to catch a single breath in her lungs. Manalo’s all but silent, a hush kicking up and dying back down in an unsteady rhythm as the crowd murmurs around the two of them. Kojirō hears waves far off in the distance.

Hidoide sees it before anyone else—the sharp wince in Sonansu’s eyes before he drops to the ground below.

“_ Sonansu! _” Musashi cries, a desperation in her tone Kojirō so rarely hears. Kuchinashi throws a single arm up with about as much enthusiasm as anyone can ask of him, speaking just barely above his normal bored drawl.

“Sonansu’s unable to battle!” he calls. “The winner of this battle is contestant Dekojirō!”

The stadium erupts—the cheers deafening, a white noise Kojirō’s known personally, but only in dreams that fade before they make it to his recall. For a moment, the reality too almost doesn’t register—not until he sees Hidoide bouncing at his feet, her energy restored seemingly all at once and her thorny crown brandished upward like a blooming rose, utterly ecstatic.

“Doi-doi-de~! De-de-deee!” she’s chirping as she soaks in the sound, and Kojirō bites back tears in a desperate attempt to articulate to his pokémon how incredibly wonderful, how incredibly resilient she is.

“You did it, Hidoide!” is all he can manage before she launches herself at him and drives her stinger far into his skin, _ where it belongs. _ He collapses in a woozy heap, words slurring as they float up from the ground where he thinks he’ll stay until someone carries him away on a gurney.

“Don’t…” he rasps. “...do that…”

The brutal star just giggles girlishly, and the sound of it is enough for Kojirō to forgive her.

Musashi stays fallen to her knees, her laser focus turned blurry and indiscriminate as she stares at nothing in particular. The breeze of the night caresses her skin and with it blows away her champion title, her name in lights, her grasp on the world as it squirms beneath her sharpened manicure. 

A sudden movement catches her eye, then—across the divide, Kojirō’s skin regains its luster, purple tint fading back to a steady, healthy brown. At once, he all but leaps back to his feet, taking Hidoide in his arms and twirling around on his heel as though they’re lovers in a merry waltz. They stay in motion like that for a while, words half-spoken between their laughter, and Musashi doesn’t realize it's happening as she slowly but surely forgets her loss in the wake of the pride blooming like an ornate rose deep within her heart.

Kojirō smiles, and laughs, and forgets where he is. She places a hand tentatively over her chest, willing the emotion not to take her right mind entirely, but feels it’s far too late.

As she’s staring up toward the stars blinking on over the heat of the stadium lights, she realizes her doubts were there from the start on whether or not she could beat him, flame that he is—but for a fleeting moment, the end result disappears, and she’s lost in the euphoria of them toe-to-toe, heart to heart.

_ It’s enough, _ Musashi realizes, wantonly. 

_ If I’m gonna lose to anyone, it’d better be him. _

Kojirō notices her staring, quiets himself with Hidoide still resting adrape in his arms. He takes his sunglasses off almost delicately, offering Musashi his truest grin, starlight reflected on his watchful greens. She mirrors the gesture, bringing the shine she wears so easily back into her own sapphire eyes. Kojirō’s stomach flutters at the softness of it, the bittersweet smile she gives the closest thing he’s ever known to home.

In some beautiful way neither of them can articulate, like a current of life rushing through the cosmos, they feel some ancient score has been settled.

**Author's Note:**

> "The duel took place on 13th April 1612, in the remote island of Ganryujima of Funashima, off the coast of the Bizen Province. As part of a strategy to throw off Kojirō‘s inner state of being, Musashi arrived three hours late. When he finally arrived, the officials of the duel as well as Sasaki Kojiro were extremely irritated; Kojiro was full of rage. On drawing his katana, he threw his scabbard aside, prompting Musashi to further enrage him by commenting, “If you have no more use for your sheath, you are already dead.”"
> 
> "According to the legend, Miyamoto arrived more than three hours late, and goaded Sasaki by taunting him. When Sasaki attacked, his blow came so close as to sever Miyamoto's chonmage. He came close to victory several times until, supposedly, he was blinded by the sunset behind Miyamoto, who struck him on the skull with his oversized bokken."
> 
> honestly, pokeani, you had one job.
> 
> [additional inspiration taken from Musashi Miyamoto's 'The Book of Five Rings']


End file.
